2.45 Scoping Things Out

45 – Scoping Things Out

When the cab approached, the setting sun hung in the sky behind it, red and huge. Hector didn’t call out or even move. When the vehicle came to a stop in the parking lot, he continued to crouch behind the planter, peering through the flowering shrubs. He was running Shadow Stalk, so he would have been effectively invisible even out in the open, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

He watched as Sass got out of the cab, stuffed her hands in the pockets of her silver-and-black bomber jacket, and walked around the cab, frowning pensively as she scanned the park. Nothing came up the road behind the cab—no other vehicles and no drones that he could discern.

There were a few people out on the grass and walking along the little engineered lakeshore. One of them even had a dog—the first one he’d seen, or at least taken note of, on Mars. Sass didn’t call out, but moved around to the front of the cab and leaned against the fender, staring at the nearby walking path.

She knows I’m watching.

//You told her to meet you here, so it would stand to reason you would be.//

Yeah, I know.

After another pair of minutes, Hector stopped the flow of aura to Shadow Stalk, and the weird, otherworldly stuff obscuring his form faded with an almost itchy tingle. He stood and walked around the planter. Sass saw him immediately, took two quick steps toward him, inhaling as if to call out, but then hesitated, stopping as her eyes narrowed. “Hector?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“But, like, really?” She glanced at the cab, pulling her metal hands out of her pockets as her skull tattoo darkened.

“Yeah, really. Relax. I’ll explain everything, but let’s get in the cab. Did you get the mask?”

She nodded and, perhaps buoyed by a sense of purpose, hurried to the cab door, opened it, and retrieved a yellow plastic bag. “A jacket, the breather, and some shades.”

Hector, still shirtless and feeling more than a little exposed, kept his eyes down, wary of any passing drones, as he hurried over to her and accepted the package. “Thanks, Sass.” He took the sunglasses out—mirrored with an angular chrome frame—and put them on. As he stood there, looking down on her, he was struck by how she seemed smaller.

Sass looked up at him, her violet eyes glittering with silvery flecks from the depths of her dark tattoo. She licked her lips, opened and closed her hands, and then, with a violent inhalation, she grabbed him around the ribs and squeezed. “I thought you were dead.”

“Nah.” He put his free hand between her shoulder blades and pressed her against him. “I probably smell like death, though.”

“You’re not lying. You look like you just dug yourself out of a grave!” She pulled away, wiped at her nose with a sniff, then slid into the cab. “You should get out of sight.”

Hector took the face mask out of the bag—a breather that would cover his nose and mouth—and adjusted the straps around his head. That done, he shrugged into the plain black windbreaker she’d gotten for him. It was tight across the chest, and he had to leave the zipper halfway down.

“Sorry,” Sass said from inside the cab, watching him. “How, um, how did you grow? What’s up with your teeth? You got a chrome job?”

Hector slid into the cab, sitting with his back to the front. “Not exactly.”

“You’re not, like, a clone or something?”

“Nah, it’s still me. I picked up some aura abilities—some corpus vivum improvements.”

“Seriously?”

He would have tried to be clever—a wink or a smirk—but she couldn’t see his eyes or his mouth, so he just shrugged. “It was that or die in there.”

“You gotta tell me all about it!” She glanced at the cab’s console, pulsing softly with an animated blue circle. “Where do we go? I still haven’t heard from—”

“Back to your hotel first. Get our stuff.”

Sass’s eyes unfocused as she looked at something on her AUI. “Okay. The, um…your things are hidden. Don’t worry.”

Hector nodded again. “You did good, Sass. No idea where the others are?”

“Not really, no. I…” Again, she hesitated, looking out the window as her skull tattoo became more and more fierce—the eyes drew into sharp angles and the teeth sharpened and multiplied so it didn’t even look human anymore.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re going to think…well, I have to tell you something.”

Hector sighed. Despite her melodrama, he wasn’t concerned. His gut was telling him she was blowing something out of proportion, so he leaned back and tried to look calm. “Just get the cab moving, and you can tell me. Relax, though; I know you.”

This book was originally published on NovelPhoenix. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Cab, take us back to my hotel.” As the vehicle pulled out of the parking spot, Sass looked at Hector again, her irises darkening, shifting toward a purple that was almost black, though the silver flecks still danced in their depths. “You know Iris Sparling?”

Hector tilted his head. Hmm. Maybe I spoke too soon. Aloud, he said, “From the mine?”

“Right, but she’s here. You know that, right? I mean, I saw you talking to her at the restaurant…”

“Yeah. I know she’s here. Still trying to recruit me for the Tharsis Games.” He didn’t mention that he had his suspicions about the woman—that there was more to her and her father than they were letting on. It seemed, judging by Sass’s question, that his suspicions had been well founded.

“Well, she talked to me before. I mean, before I left Redwick with you. She wanted me to, I don’t know, tell her stuff about you.” Sass held up her hand and hastily added, “I refused, but I probably should have told you about it.”

“Okay. What else?” Hector knew there had to be more, or this wouldn’t be coming up right then.

“She reached out after the shit that went down at the rift.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She wanted to know if I knew anything…and she was fishing about Lemon and them, too. Told her to get lost, but she gave me an address—said I shouldn’t hesitate to reach out if I needed help. I mean, I don’t know if she’s a bad guy or a friend or what, but I was kind of hoping she might know something about Lemon. I was thinking about it real hard, like, you know?” Hector got the feeling Sass had been under a lot more strain than she was letting on while he’d been trapped in the rift.

“You didn’t check the address out?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t been here long, and I hadn’t gotten up the nerve. Sorry. I was just keeping my head down. I mean, you said I’d be getting another message, so I wasn’t sure. It’s just—”

“Relax,” Hector said again. He looked out the window, watching the buildings blur by. They were already near the center of the little town; it didn’t take long to get anywhere in Kessler’s Reach. The thought distracted him, and he didn’t speak for a while as he watched the streets and buildings—the vehicles and people walking by.

Sass’s nervousness was palpable. He could see her knee bouncing up and down in his peripheral vision, but he was still thinking, still weighing the options. He had to get ahold of Gladia. According to the local news nets, Freddy’s mother was “still at large” with the terrorist cell. He knew that was all bullshit, of course; her cousin, Balus, was telling the local news—Imperial propagandists—what to say. Could Iris help, or am I radioactive to her now? She might just sell me to Balus.

//You could feel her out through Sass.//

Hate to use the kid like that.

The cab pulled to a stop along the curb, and Hector looked at the young fighter. Her skull tattoo was a nightmare mask. “You’re not relaxing.”

“How can I? I just told you I was holding out on you and you’ve been silent, staring out the window!”

“You weren’t holding out, Sass. When Iris approached you, you hardly knew me. It’s not like you swore a blood oath to me or anything.” He nodded toward the door on the sidewalk-side of the cab. “I’ll wait here.”

Sass hesitated before opening the door. “So, just get my stuff and come out?”

“Yeah.” Hector didn’t say it, but he wanted to see if anyone aroused his suspicion, if anyone was watching for her. Half a dozen people were milling about under the hotel’s awning. The attendants hadn’t approached the cab yet, but he could see them watching, ready to pounce if they thought a guest needed help with a bag. Besides the people out front, there were quite a few buildings nearby with street-facing windows. There were a dozen cameras in view, too, but he felt relatively secure in the cab behind his glasses.

“P-promise you’re not gonna ditch me?”

“Come on, Sass.” He tried a stab at humor. “Not as long as you’ve got my stuff.”

“Hey!” She punched his knee, and her chrome knuckles clacked satisfyingly.

Hector held out his hand, and she stared at it. “Take it.” With a nod, she hastily grasped his hand, and he squeezed gently. “I’m grateful to you, Sass, and I promise I’m not going anywhere—not without talking to you about it.”

Her eyes brightened, and her tattoo faded slightly as she nodded. “You’re a little different.”

“It was a hell of a time in there. We’ll talk about it. Later.”

Without another word, Sass released his hand and slipped out of the cab. Head down, hands in pockets, she motored past the waiting door attendants and slipped into the hotel.

“Pardon me, but will you be exiting as well, sir?”

Hector glanced at the cab’s crystal-glass display. “Just wait.”

“Of course.”

//Have you given thought to the Veilborn Duelist transition?//

Yeah, I have, Evie, but nothing’s changed; we’re in the eye of the storm here—I don’t think I can afford to apply potentia when I need to be sharp.

Hector put his hand on Freddy’s neurodeck, squeezing its solid weight through the stained, ragged material of his pants. We’ve got a guy trying to ruin us—Freddy, too—and he’s already tried to kill me a few times. He’s got access to at least one monster. I’d like to find Gladia and deal with this bastard before he calls his killer home from the rift. You understand?

//Of course. I’ll refrain from suggesting updates until you’ve gotten to a safe location or—//

Killed Balus. It felt good to put it into words, even mentally.

Hector continued to watch through the cab’s bulbous windows. They were well-tinted, and with the mask and glasses on, he wasn’t worried about the cams monitoring the street picking up his biometrics. Still, Sass wasn’t exactly hard to miss, so if someone had associated her with him—someone with access to drones or cam footage…

//I’m not picking anything up on any of the public bands; the local journos—//

Probably all owned by the Empire, anyway.

//No, there are some pages expressing skepticism about the “terrorist” rumors, though they don’t get much traffic.//

Hector sighed, abandoning the conversation; it wasn’t worth arguing when neither of them knew exactly what sort of influence Balus Ventress had been able to bring to bear. It was bad enough that he’d taken control of Gladia’s ship and the IG barracks. Whatever he was doing to spin the news…

How wide has this story gone? The bits about Freddy and his mom being terrorists, I mean.

//Only rumors, no doubt started by Balus; he hasn’t provided an official statement yet. That will come on—//

Thursday.

Before Evie could continue the conversation, Hector saw Sass emerge from the hotel with two packs over her shoulders and a suitcase trundling along behind her. One of the men at the door stopped her and they spoke for a moment, but other than that, he didn’t see anyone pay her any unusual attention. When she slipped into the cab, she handed Hector his old pack—the one with the drive-core cipher in it—and then put the suitcase on the floor between them.

“This is the thing from Redwick.”

Hector nodded. “Nice work.”

She smiled, though it looked almost like a grimace as she glanced at the suitcase. “Where to?”

“Well…” Hector ran his finger under the breather mask, itching his skin. “I guess we should pay Iris a visit. Just you, at first—to feel her out.”

Sass nodded, but her skull darkened. “I’ll do anything you need, but I’m not—”

“Experienced with this sort of thing. Don’t worry, Sass. I wouldn’t send you in there alone.” Hector held up a fist until she nodded and clacked her knuckles against it. “They just won’t know I’m there.”